I suppose I'll post this little WIP.
At the end of August my girlfriend and I are taking the plunge...no not marriage. We are adopting a little baby noodle. There's a reptile expo that comes through town and we went to one last year and fell in love. So we have been planning for this year to get one.
I have 3d modeled most of the enclosure I'll be building. It is going to be out of wood with stain and sealer. The floor is going to be acrylic or pvc. I will attach heat tape to the bottom for the hot side and there will be routed channels in the ceiling for led strips. This is where Arduino comes in.
I plan to have temp sensors on the heat tape to read the temp at both ends of the enclosure. It will compare the actual temp with what I want it at and decide whether or not to switch the relay on or off.
For lighting I will rout channels in the ceiling of the enclosure. I haven't decided whether I want to rout all the way through so there can be some ambient lighting out of the top or just stick with the noodle's light. I will decide that later. Anyways, I will place the led strips with hot glue or something and then pour epoxy into the channel to diffuse the light. I got a RTC board for the Arduino and plan to have the lights fade in based on time of day. So at dawn they very lightly come on and gradually fade in till they are brightest at noon. Then fade out till dusk where they turn off.
I have started ordering parts and stuff. This is my first time using arduino, but it doesn't seem too hard. I have taken classes on C++ so I know the basics. Now for some images cause tl;dr
This is my proposed circuit. The temp sensors I have are a bit different but it's the same basic concept. There's a DHT22 to read ambient Humidity and Temp as well. I believe the LCD I got comes as a kit so I can wire it up with the pot and buttons and only use two wires for the Arduino.
This is my 3d modeled enclosure minus the door. It's a box...a glorified box. I was learning AutoCAD as I did this so it took me way too long. It is 18" X 48" X 15" I think. There's a 4" substrate dam in the front.
At the end of August my girlfriend and I are taking the plunge...no not marriage. We are adopting a little baby noodle. There's a reptile expo that comes through town and we went to one last year and fell in love. So we have been planning for this year to get one.
I have 3d modeled most of the enclosure I'll be building. It is going to be out of wood with stain and sealer. The floor is going to be acrylic or pvc. I will attach heat tape to the bottom for the hot side and there will be routed channels in the ceiling for led strips. This is where Arduino comes in.
I plan to have temp sensors on the heat tape to read the temp at both ends of the enclosure. It will compare the actual temp with what I want it at and decide whether or not to switch the relay on or off.
For lighting I will rout channels in the ceiling of the enclosure. I haven't decided whether I want to rout all the way through so there can be some ambient lighting out of the top or just stick with the noodle's light. I will decide that later. Anyways, I will place the led strips with hot glue or something and then pour epoxy into the channel to diffuse the light. I got a RTC board for the Arduino and plan to have the lights fade in based on time of day. So at dawn they very lightly come on and gradually fade in till they are brightest at noon. Then fade out till dusk where they turn off.
I have started ordering parts and stuff. This is my first time using arduino, but it doesn't seem too hard. I have taken classes on C++ so I know the basics. Now for some images cause tl;dr
This is my proposed circuit. The temp sensors I have are a bit different but it's the same basic concept. There's a DHT22 to read ambient Humidity and Temp as well. I believe the LCD I got comes as a kit so I can wire it up with the pot and buttons and only use two wires for the Arduino.
This is my 3d modeled enclosure minus the door. It's a box...a glorified box. I was learning AutoCAD as I did this so it took me way too long. It is 18" X 48" X 15" I think. There's a 4" substrate dam in the front.